9: The End is Near, if You Can Make It
We are almost close to the hour of the apocalypse. 9 awaits us on the destined day and moment. It is the countdown to a film, and it is a celebration too. TIM BURTON and his craft, sometimes derided, other times hailed as a genre in itself. I have been thinking about so many things related to his films, they give you so much more to cherish, to recount, to go over for days. Each of his films demands something out of you, a willingness to go with the mood. And it all depends on what BURTON is dreaming today.
Review of 9, the short film
9- the short film leaves you gasping for a breath. It is a world that could ever be possible if not for the overflowing controls on imagination. The characters rise in the dark, look around, wake up to the sounds of fate, you can almost hear the dread playing the music of doom. It is a film without any fuss. (not to make Wall-E sound like a gimmick, but) When you watch 9, a sense of calm overrides your thoughts; you descend down into this world of shadows and strange hues. The machines become your grammar. You grow conscious of every little clammer clutter, each microscopic and mechanical moment wreaks havoc on your mass of attention. Of course one only wishes the images were as large as life, and the screen would engulf the vision of the future, and the lack of almost everything indicative of anything would perpetrate into eternity.
As two characters chuckle silently in the land of the inanimate, marveling at their little discoveries and sharing a hard-to-afford smile, machines enter their world.
The machines smell of rebellion. They roar, they meow, they send the dread multiplying all the way to the mighty sky unto powers of infinity.
As the eerie green rays pervade the dark, the machine tortures the proverbial creator, and hence challenges its very origin, with less or no signs of respect, a trait they deem prevalent amongst humans.
At this point, ensues a chase, as 9 grows aware of the clear and present danger, gathering all the courage that he would need in a merciless situation like this. The machine comes for him. The lights scrutinize the remnants of a life long gone dead. This is no fairy tale. It is gruesome and harsh like the machine’s worst intentions.
The machine looks like this is the end, but it collapses into the hollow and it is suddenly a night fire, as 9 observes the little clues he has to construct a theory that could explain this consequent madness that has plundered his immediate atmosphere.
As he is busy with these thoughts, green figures emerge in the dark and occupy their destined spots with clinical precision. And the frame zooms out into a sweet melody of aftermath.
The future is vast, limitless and very, very unpredictable.
The B.R.A.I.N. is a:
Binary
Reactive
Artificially
Intelligent
Neurocircuit
In Hindu mythology, the 9 major celestial bodies are personified as the Navagraha, one of whom (the moon) is named “Chandra”.
War. May I be forgiven for my part in this.
Today, our Nation declared war on the other struggling countries, and those infernal War Machines have been unleashed on the globe, their gas bombs capable of wiping out hundreds… thousands… maybe millions.
The greed and corruption that have fueled this endeavor within our government for so long… it sickens me. But the fact that my work, my creation is at the eye of this storm… please forgive me.
Rebels, if you are listening, I believe in you. I was wrong to have been blinded by the potential of technology… but now I am working on something to change the course of the events set in motion. I will send you a sign. I must turn to the Dark Arts.
- The Scientist
Apparently there must be a negative response to every positive occurrence in this world.
After the announcement of my achievement this week, it seems that a group of citizens proudly calling themselves Rebels have spread their anti-technology vitriol around the city, specifically targeting the Chancellor, the B.R.A.I.N., and me.
I am all for a healthy debate, but why have so much resistance to progress? This machine has the potential to reshape our social, economic, and political landscape.
I have been followed home the last two nights. Assume I’m under surveillance as I write this. Can’t sleep again.
I need to escape this persistent searchlight of the government. Protests are increasing. The divide between the people and their leaders has never seemed wider.
Never thought the underground would be so appealing.
The word evolution consists of 9 characters.
7
No matter how hard it may be to find, balance exists everywhere in our chaotic universe. Within nature, love, religion, and science, there exists a counterpoint to balance out the rules of our world. It’s a lesson I learn over and over again.
Even in these walls, I am learning by observing my new creations. 1 is a born leader, but has a hard time with trust. 5 is a natural counterpoint, full of innocent trust. This is not to imply that either is better or worse than the other, merely that they display strengths and weaknesses. It is a beautiful thing.
They were all unbalanced, until this afternoon.
7. She is beautiful, brave, and fiercely independent. She displays an agile ferocity unseen in the others, something else I never could have predicted. Her sharp eye will prove invaluable on their mission.
7 is going to whip the rest into shape.
3 & 4
It’s terrifying to think that you really don’t know what you had in this life until it’s too late.
I’m not quite sure what these creations will do in the future, but one thing is clear, we’ve made so many mistakes in the past.
I want to make sure these foolish decisions are never repeated. To do that, the world collectively must learn, and remember. Not a faint emotional memory, but a clear record of time.
Thus, 3 and 4.
So much energy! So much unbridled childlike curiosity.
They carry the same inquisitive nature as 2, but with unparalleled passion. It’s like history and knowledge provide sustenance to their speedy little bodies.
And I mean SPEEDY. These guys are like little puppies, but instead of running around and chewing on furniture, 3 and 4 open books and tear through them with their eyes. Then they carefully return the book to its place and move on to the next.
I’ve given up trying to chase them around the room.
Their joy boosts my spirits. Yet in the recesses of my mind, I cannot forget the death outside.
The Music
Beethoven wrote 9 symphonies.
Danny Elfman
Q: You seem to be at your best when scoring projects with outsiders. As someone who entered scoring from the rock world and fought hard to be recognized as a film composer, do you still view yourself as an outsider to Hollywood?
A: I always view myself as an outsider in Hollywood. And even though I know I’ve achieved a lot of recognition and that they occasionally pay me a lot, I still feel like as much of an outsider now as I was when I started. I was in a band, yet I didn’t feel any association with any other group. I was in a universe unto myself. And being in your own world goes with the territory of being a film composer. In 23 years, I’ve hardly met any other composers, so it’s not like I have a repartee with a community of other writers. My world is completely solo, up until the very last second, when I’m suddenly in a room with a whole orchestra for a few days. But for anywhere between six and 12 weeks, I’m working every day by myself. Maybe twice a week I’ll get a visit from a director, and then it’s back to solo. So it’s easy to feel like an outsider. I’ve felt that way my whole life anyhow. So of course I always lean towards the outsider in any story. That’s what I grab onto.
Q: When you are producing a demo for a filmmaker and even given the growth in technology, what ideas do you find most challenging to express without actually recording the music live?
A: Well, I am not a guitarist or not a good one anyway and when you have strumminginstruments such as the guitar, it is difficult to express those ideas in synth mock-ups. I either need to improve my guitar playing or start shopping for a more sophisticated guitar synth! The other things are like what Thomas Newman has done in his improvisatory layering of ethnic instruments, a technique that has become very popular in modern film music. With traditional orchestral music, it is a lot easier to use synthesizers to give a director an idea what they will hear in its completed state. It’s rather tough to give them a preview of the modern collages of sounds that will be created live in the studio with the help of brilliant musicians like George Doering. Some of the most amazing textures you’ll hear in film music today are created, in a large part, by the players themselves who are letting their imaginations run wild. It takes a skilled composer to create the environment to turn those ideas into great film music, but it’s most definitely a collaborative effort with these insanely talented studio musicians.
6
6 is, shall I say, peculiar.
After the birth of 5, I thought that subsequent creations would continue to show a natural connection to the world around them, a place in this world. And it’s not to say that 6 doesn’t belong… just that he does not fit in naturally.
Which is not necessarily a negative observation. He is amazingly expressive through his art, these strange little sketches that capture what he’s thinking better than any words.
I think he just sees the world differently than the others, and in this sense, he is alone. But he seems to like it that way. Sometimes it is easier to be by yourself.
Steampunk by John Couthart
This is all my fault.
I can’t stop thinking it. A fool like me deserves no forgiveness.
I am a catalyst for destruction. Pain. Suffering. I am the reason why mankind finds itself in the middle of the worst battles since the Great World War. This era of Machines holds the potential to devastate the infrastructure of entire societies. I put us here.
For what? A damned experiment? For the Chancellor?
Is 9 an anti-science film?
9 hypnotizes viewers
The French can’t get a neuf of it
5 for the Day:Scientists on Film
Introduction to 9 by Ray Kurzweil
On The Score With Deborah Lurie
He Dances to the Uncanny – Danny Elfman Interview
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
The future’s uncertain and the end is always near!
The End will overstay the future’s welcome.
WOHA! I went HEHEHEHAHAHAHAHAHAHA.. now i want to conquer Lituania, Slovenia or something wearing a fur cap
Ya man, suddenly it turned all rebellious. I was about to spoil all posters, then realized they stand for love & peace, not war.
This is dictator stuff man.. eet ess zuperlateev
I told you types.
now all set, fully loaded, sitting in my fucking tank, ready to press red button on 09-09-09
Feels all good. That tired and satisfying feeling, when you decide to skip sleep and await the dawn.
Very Lush article!!
All set for the Plan 9!
Yo! Unite & Resist. 7 days to go.
Fuck man, writing stuff on this, is just draining me out, whew i never worked so hard for my college exams,
Ha ha. College exams! Those were some sad times, mostly like the Victor Van Dort in the Land of the Living. Na koi umang hai types. This shit is something else… and exams were so unmerciful and unrewarding man, the pay off here is one of ghoulish ecstasy.
btw, will get back to your post in some time. watching some Eastwood(high plains drifter).
and AWESOME NEW DESIGN. 9 IT IS!